Random or handmade world?

[k4llu5]

I would rather have a static world if it had more paths to go through instead of the lone road. The destination would be still the same of course, but it would break up the monotony. This was my biggest gripe about TQ. Randomization doesn't leave me with a lasting impression of the game world. It's nice when mobs and chests are randomized as this creates a sense of tension and surprise when you don't know whats around the corner.

[zyklop]

The Diablo3 concept of handmade key-locations and randomly generated dungeons seems to be a good mix between beautiful sceneries and always new generated dungeon challenges. I had the chance to play D3 in Cologne last august as press member and it took only a few minutes to beam me back 10 years earlier. The gameplay "flows", the same happened 3 years ago with Titan Quest. So my personal wish is, that Grim Dawn will get the best from both worlds - nice locations, remarkeble npc´s, challenging quests and randomized dungeons for a high replay-factor.

[Skorpion_King]

And what about more than one handmade map? I would prefer random maps, specially in order to play the game with a lot of characters one time and another, but reading the problems you are explaining... maybe this idea were easier.

So, maybe (i don´t know) one solution could be not having only one map for all characters, but it would be nice to have for example 4 maps for 4 characters (and 4 maps for 1 character anyway, so 16 combinations to play with).. so when you start the game with a new character a different map will be choosen. I am not sure but i think i have read somewhere that in Torchlight there is not real randomization, something like this is the way maps are generated.

Other suggestion could be having pieces of handmade maps that could be moved in the global map (randomly or previously defined).

Just some ideas Crate people could try, i don´t know the viability of them.

[LeStryfe79]

The problem with Torchlight randomization is that nothing ever felt new. It was more like "oh here is this area again", instead of "wow, this looks different". Oh well, at least they tried. Random interactive placeables should not be tied to certain architectures, but random ones instead. I know what I just said made NO sense, lol!

Diablo3 will probably be the first game that actually gets this part right...Unfortunately

[MadWasp]

Handmade outdoor world gives beautiful visual aesthetic look.

I bet for absolutelly handmade. Maybe caves do a little random... but a handmade cave look better too.

[Starkrun]

For what its worth, a static game will fade into oblivion... but a dynamic landscape (even if there just huge twisting tiles) will last much longer... Ive played out Dungeon Siege and Titans Quest... i know the spawns and world like the back of my hand... I would be very surprised if i ever go back.

With Titans Quest it was fun, a lot of fun, but I've beaten in somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 times and im done. Thats 21 times I ran the world! With the Masteries fan-patch integration coming that's going to warrant a new play though.

But a Dynamic world, EG: Din's Curse, Diablo 2, will last forever. I am still playing Diablo 2, in fact i have a team game going that just hit the 5 hour mark.

Static world with sprawling dungeons (built in waypoints) would work, frustration and similarity is not a good combination for any game. If there is a static world then at least have dynamic actors in that level so im not always looking at the same broken caravan or group of trees, or i know that a monster spawn in ahead of the 2nd pond. Dynamic placement in the static world area could keep the game fresh and exciting and worth many many playthoughs.

As another example Hellgate was beautifully done, and with the new fan patch out now its quite playable. The editors make it moddable and highly fun and addictive again. Knowing there is a new game every time i make a new playermakes me a happy camper. There are major areas in the game that are static but getting there is half the fun, and atleast there are still dynamic MOB placement in the static areas keeping it fresh.

Basically my excitement meter is like at 30% for Diablo 3 knowing its mainly static with "Random Quests" and a few Random Dungeons... i could really care less at this point. If they released an editor that would be different, with an editor that could extend the games life by double with a good community. But no editor and your stuck with patches every year or so... whoopee a new ARPG that looks like WOW and has a dynamic quest system and the same world scape every single play though. If there dungeons are small D3 will get very old very fast.

Torchlights randomization was based of handcrafted areas, they made the entire level and then created tiles that could be interchanged by hand and set a random chance % on them, nothing like how isometric dynamic games were, and because of the world detail they were not able to used to dungeon setup like FATE even used to make a truly dynamic world. But it worked, im still happy with it even with limited randomization. And ive already made a good 40 tiles to inject into each tile theme, i have another weeks work or so to really get this game "random" gotta love the ability to make your own tiles and inject them into the game!

[medierra]

Originally Posted by TheRani

In TQ there were a lot of tiny caves and dungeons that didn't have much of interest in them. Maybe a few critters and a primitive or ornate chest or pile o' bones. Waste of space. If those had been randomly generated dungeons containing a randomly generated mini-boss and some decent treasure, that would have been a lot more fun. Maybe even a few random quests in each town that point to such places would be nice. In short, maybe a combination of set-in-stone areas and quests, and randomly generated areas and quests would be nice.

This pretty much sums up how we felt about TQ side-dungeons and what we're trying to do with undergrounds in GD. We don't have this technology in place yet, so I don't want to post anything official about it until we're sure it's going to happen.

The above ground level layouts will be static but we're making them more open, so there isn't always just one linear path and we're randomizing some of the important points within them like quest objectives. Basically instead of following a narrow corridor you'll be going through a series of bubbles of varying size. It isn't the ultimate system that we'd create if we had unlimited money but we think it will be a big improvement over TQ in terms of replayability.

[Starkrun]

Originally Posted by medierra

The above ground level layouts will be static but we're making them more open, so there isn't always just one linear path and we're randomizing some of the important points within them like quest objectives. Basically instead of following a narrow corridor you'll be going through a series of bubbles of varying size. It isn't the ultimate system that we'd create if we had unlimited money but we think it will be a big improvement over TQ in terms of replayability.

Thats what I'm talking about... remove the corridors, add random elements, make the static seem fresh with every play though. I love this idea, and I can't wait to hear about your "cave tech" once you can speak more about it.

[starkaas]

An idea I read earlier was having the areas expand as you change in difficulty ie normal to epic more dungeons, outdoor areas, quests, then epic to legendary again even more areas, dungeons, outdoor areas, quests. This would save on figuring out a good random area generating system and allow for some really good craft areas...

[Fortuitous]

Originally Posted by starkaas

An idea I read earlier was having the areas expand as you change in difficulty ie normal to epic more dungeons, outdoor areas, quests, then epic to legendary again even more areas, dungeons, outdoor areas, quests. This would save on figuring out a good random area generating system and allow for some really good craft areas...

Great minds think alike

Well maybe just about everyone thinks alike, we just like to think we are unique by ignoring comments that sound to similar to our own

Hand crafted maps is significantly superior to randomly generated ones...after all the goal is exactly the same, it's just the tiles that change to get there (take Diablo 2 for example).